In this project I am preparing for publication a book entitled Pursuit of the Fiery Shuttle: Turning Points in Twentieth-Century Nerve Physiology, which will deal with the development between 1900 and 1960 of modern fundamental concepts of the nerve impulse as it is conducted in the axon and transmitted across the synapse. Central topics will be: the establishment of the "all-or-none" principle, the introduction of electronic amplification and the cathode-ray oscilloscope, the discovery of frequency coding, the demonstration of acetylcholine as a neural transmitter, the development of electrical models of the nerve membrane, the explanation of the nerve impulse as ion flows, the discovery that impulses excite or inhibit according to their electrical action across the synapse, and the complementary evidence that neural transmitters are released in quanta related to the arrival of nerve impulses. Major figures include Sherrington, Lucas, Adrian, Forbes, Davis, Gasser, Erlanger, Bronk, Hartline, Loewi, Dale, Feldberg, Hill, Young, Cole, Curtis, Hodgkin, Huxley, Keynes, Gerard, Fatt, Eccles, and Katz. My presentation will emphasize how electronic instrumentation, special techniques and biological preparations, and biophysical models were manipulated within a closely knit community of British and American investigators to create an intellectual structure of remarkable explanatory power and great elegance. The historical reconstruction and analysis has been based on published scientific articles and books, on manuscript laboratory notes and massive correspondence, and on detailed focused interviews with investigators and/or their students and associates.